Testing Astrophysical Radiation Hydrodynamics Codes with Hypervelocity Jet Experiments on the Nova Laser

Recent shock-tube experiments using the Nova laser facility have demonstrated that strong shocks and highly supersonic flows similar to those encountered in astrophysical jets can be studied in detail through carefully controlled experiments. We propose the use of high-power lasers such as Nova, Omega, Gekko, and the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to perform experiments on radiation hydrodynamic problems such as jets involving the multidimensional dynamics of strong shocks. High-power lasers are the only experimental facilities that can reach the very high Mach number regime. The experiments will serve as diagnostics of astrophysically interesting gasdynamic problems and could also form the basis of test problems for numerical algorithms for astrophysical radiation hydrodynamic codes. The potential for experimentally achieving a strongly radiative jet seems very good.